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I have found all the information on site positioning off your this web site extremely informative. I am putting together a site to promote my professional photography business & have been researching the major search engines & directories, & am amazed how the search results differs from making a word plural or adding a word.
I was hoping you could let me know if I am asking for trouble from search engines using the following keywords in my <keyword meta tag>, submitting my site to looksmart, all the web, alta vista, direct hit, google, hotbot, lycos, northern light, webcrawler & yahoo.
black and white candid photographers,
black and white candid photography,
candid event photographers,
candid event photography,
candid party photographers,
candid party photography,
candid wedding photographers,
candid wedding photography,
CLB photo,
CLB photography,
event photographers,
event photography,
new jersey candid event photographers,
new jersey candid event photography,
new jersey candid party photographers,
new jersey candid party photography,
new jersey candid wedding photographers,
new jersey event photographers,
new jersey event photography,
new jersey party photographers,
new jersey party photography,
new jersey wedding photographers,
new jersey wedding photography,
nj candid event photographers,
nj candid event photographers,
nj candid event photography,
nj candid party photographers,
nj candid party photography,
nj candid wedding photographers,
nj candid wedding photography,
nj event photographers,
nj event photography,
nj party photographers,
nj party photography,
nj photographers,
nj wedding photographers,
nj wedding photography,
party photographers,
party photography,
wedding photographers,
wedding photography.
Thank you again - chris
Welcome to WebmasterWorld
I would have to say that list is a bit much if you're intending to include them all in a single page. My personal opinion is that extending your keyword tag much beyond the key phrases relected in your title and first few sentences of your body copy is a waste of time.
There many threads here that discuss the overuse of keywords. Clicking this link [searchengineworld.com] will provide you a long list of recent threads to read.
clbphoto, the differences in results are a good indicator of how competitive terms are. The use of plural or single is an ever-present issue, and imho Google AdWords is a great tool to use once a site is done to see whether the plural or singular version is getting the most impressions, or which one most searchers are looking for.
You'll want to narrow the primary focus of the site to a single theme and that's what you'll emphasize on the home page, which should be geared to potential customers, letting them know as soon as they arrive the range of services you offer. The homepage should use the most commonly applicable keyphrase.
Then, you can link to separate sections of the site that will emphasize the specific areas. It's a matter of assuming what the searcher will type in when looking and helping them to find it through creating relevant pages.
If I lived in Newark, I'd look for "Newark photographers" or "photographers in Newark." If I were looking for a wedding photographer, I'd type in "wedding photographers" but I'd find photographers from all locations, so I'd then try "Newark wedding photographers" and/or "wedding photographers in Newark."
Note: if I were planning on taking the photos myself, I'd look for "wedding photography" to find do-it-yourself tips. It's a subtle difference, but it's getting inside the surfer's head. You want people who are looking for a professional photographer in New Jersey. Some may type in photography, but that word will get both, while photographers will be *only* those looking for a pro.
You can use any variations of your main keyword that are consistent with the site theme, as long as they're all on separate pages or in separate sections.
For special events, you'll want a main special events section or page with keyword-rich links to individual pages for bar mitzvahs, anniversaries, parties, etc.
Here's a tutorial on the basics:
Do a site search on "themes" for a lot of information on setting up the structure of the site. There's even a full-color chart explaining the hierarchy of site structure. This will be enormous help in choosing your keywords.
Some would use canonicals, not a bad idea, but you'd do fine to keep it simple for yourself and use directories for sections, such as /wedding-photography/ with the index page there including the phrase "wedding photographer." You can do separate pages for plural and singular, as long as you've got relevant content on the page.
Restrict the number of keywords per page to avoid dilution. In this case, less is better. Include in page title, <H2> tag, body text particularly at page top, but sprinkled throughout, and very importantly, in text links. The description and keyword meta tags are a bonus feature, since they're not universally used, but if they're tightly focused they'll be of some use.
The important thing you'll need to do is have good tracking of site statistics, so you can see the actual terms people are using to find your site. Then, you make adjustments over time to raise the rankings of any pages that you find are drawing traffic.
Another tip, since you'll want directory listings, is to check out the categories at ODP (most important of all), LookSmart (iffy and only of value with MSN) and Yahoo, and see the words used in their category listings. This also helps to focus on site navigation, as well as choosing the keywords.
Check the full-color graphical representation of site structure out:
Added:
An important point is to make sure and use "plain vanilla" text links including keywords. Search engine spiders don't read Javascript, so while some great sites have JS links, they need to be supplemented with basic spider food.
I understand for some SE the large META KW tag decreases my targeted keyword density.
My question is - regardless the fact meta keywords tag isn't an effective tool for major SE promotion, how many keywords (strictly relevant to the page's topic) can I use in META KW tag to avoid being penalized? Do the major SE have any limit of the length of KW tag beyond which they take the KW tag as keyword spamming?
Thanks
ArturX
